Need to Read: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Have you ever wondered, "Am I living a good story?"

Seriously, think about it. What stories do I have to tell?

Donald Miller of A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is given the opportunity unavailable to most, he gets to edit his life. I mean, it's for a screenplay, but still, he gets to edit and examine his life. He realizes, while editing, that his life is boring, and that he has bought into the lie that is "The American Dream." More, more, more actually makes you feel less, less, less.

Anyway, he examines what makes a story great and applies those principals to his life. A character, firstly, must want something. As a character in my own life, what do I want? Do I want the house, the family, the job? or do I want my own adventure? Don climbed the Andes mountains. First thing about Don, he's not some adventurer/explorer. He's a writer. He just got sick of his own story.

Stories aren't all about adventures either, they revolve around characters. You could have an epic tale of clashing armies or alien abductions or anything gory and far-fetched and it would be a flop without any human-ness in it. Stories are people. You're a story, I'm a story. I am a tree in a story about a forest, as Don says.

Don just picks apart his life the way the people dog-ear and underline books. It makes you look at your own life and try and see what elements of your story got you where you are to today.

So I'd recommend this book because I've realized that I have drifted farther and farther away from what I wanted. I realized that I'm settling. For a long time I wanted to write and inspire, but school has always gotten in the way. What will my excuse be later?

So think about your protagonist. Think about the characters around you. I've always wanted to live inside books, but Don helped me realize that I can I was just being lazy.